← The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos
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- [00:00]
Toyota Customer
Dear Toyota, I need a word with you about your Crown family. I started driving one and suddenly I love traffic. No, really, rush hour is my happy place. Intentional wrong turns feel so right. I could sit in the comfort of my crown forever, basking in its elegance, feeling on top of the world. But you see how this is strange for me, right? Who gets excited about traffic? This is on you, Toyota.
- [00:24]
Podcast Host
And send the captivating Toyota Crown family.
- [00:28]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Toyota.
- [00:29]
Podcast Host
Let's go places.
- [00:30]
Amazon Pharmacy Voice
Amazon Pharmacy presents Painful thoughts.
- [00:35]
Toyota Customer
The guy in front of me in the pharmacy line is halfway through an incredibly detailed 17 minute story about his gout. A story likely more painful than the gout itself.
- [00:50]
Amazon Pharmacy Voice
Next time, save yourself the pain and let Amazon Pharmacy deliver your meds right to your door. Amazon Pharmacy Healthcare just got less painful.
- [01:06]
Podcast Producer
Pushkin the new year is a great time to take a look at what's not serving you. And if I had to pick one trait that's definitely not been serving me, it's my perfectionism. I tend to beat myself up a lot. I'm terrified to try things that I might not be good at. And even small mess ups make me feel like I'm sort of a bad person. So in this next episode of our how to season, I'm bringing you a timely guide for fighting that kind of self criticism, or what I like to call how to feel like you're enough. And picking an expert for this episode was easy. Dr. Ellen Hendrickson is a clinical psychologist at Boston University's center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. Like me, Ellen is a recovering perfectionist. She's also the author of a fabulous book that I strongly recommend. It's called how to be Self Acceptance for Self critics and perfectionists.
- [01:57]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
I mean, there's a saying for self help book authors, and that is write the book you need. So I partially wrote the book for me. But, you know, certainly there's also an external reason I wrote the book, which is because I think there is sort of a silent epidemic of perfectionism happening. And I've noticed that perfectionism is a bit of a misnomer. It's not about striving to be perfect. No one ever comes into the anxiety specialty clinic where I work and says, ellen, I strive for perfection. I need help. I'm a perfectionist. Instead, people come in and say, I feel like I'm always failing. I have so much on my plate and I'm not doing anything well, I'm falling behind. I should be so much further ahead than where I am now in life. Or they just have sort of a sense of dissatisfaction with their lives. So it's. It's not about striving for perfection. It's about never feeling good enough.
- [02:58]
Podcast Host
And was that the kind of thing that manifested in your own life when you thought about perfectionism?
- [03:02]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
For sure, yeah, I think. Well. So ironically, before I started writing the book, I burned out. I had been grinding for so long that for me, burnout manifested mostly physically. So I developed a GI illness. I woke up one morning and I couldn't turn my head to the right. My muscles were so tight, I blew out my forearm from typing too much. So I've been through like five rounds of physical therapy. So for me, it was mostly physical, but it can absolutely manifest in terms of relationships. So, you know, luckily my marriage was fine, was okay, But I realized that I again, had been grinding for a long time and looked up and realized I hadn't talked to a lot of my friends for a long time. For other folks, again, it can manifest more cognitively, more emotionally, that sense of dissatisfaction with their lives or all those phrases I mentioned before. But it definitely ground me to a halt, which apparently is pretty common for most folks. As they age, they mellow. But for people with perfectionism, something else happens, and that's the wheels start to come off, that we become less diligent and start to burn out. And so I think it's really common, especially at midlife or mid career, for all of this to come to a head. I found one paper in my research writing the book. I'll paraphrase the title, but it essentially said, perfectionist at 20, burnout at 40.
- [04:25]
Podcast Host
It's like you're speaking my language. It's actually really bad. I feel like I've never been as kind of called out or felt as seen.
- [04:31]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Like when I was reading we're on the same journey.
- [04:33]
Podcast Host
I mean, I'm curious if you went through the same thing I feel like I've gone through where kind of the normal enjoyment I've had of things has sort of changed over time, like, because of my perfectionism. Is that something you experienced as well?
- [04:44]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
It's confusing, right? Like, it's everybody's favorite weakness in a job interview. Oh, what's your biggest weakness? Oh, I'm such a perfectionist. And it absolutely can be good and healthy and adaptive. There are some researchers who would disagree with me on that, but there are some who would absolutely agree that there can be healthy perfectionism, and that is when it's grounded in striving for excellence. We do good work for the work's sake. We have high Standards, we care deeply. It all comes from a good place. In fact, the healthy heart of perfectionism is a personality trait called conscientiousness. You know, that is the least sexy superpower. You know, like, we fulfill our responsibilities in a single bound. But it's been found to be, in terms of personality, the biggest predictor for a good life. So it predicts objective, you know, quote unquote, success, like income, and subjective success, like life satisfaction and, you know, appropriate to our conversation, happiness. So as far as a personality trait, it's the one to pick, but it can absolutely tip over into unhealthy perfectionism. I think of perfectionism as sort of like one of those optical illusions that if you look at it one way, you see one thing and like the bunny or the duck or the young lady or the old lady. So if you look at it a different way, it can definitely tip over into unhealthy perfectionism. And that's when instead of striving for excellence, instead of trying to do excellent work for the work's sake, we start to fall into something called over evaluation, which is when we conflate ourselves and our performance. So we have to perform as superbly as possible to be sufficient as a person. Forgive my grammar, but it's when I did good equals I am good. And that's the heart of unhealthy perfectionism.
- [06:35]
Podcast Host
It also seems like this unhealthy perfectionism is getting worse. Our culture is kind of making it worse. Talk about some of the things that right now in the modern day can make perfectionism in general. I bet over evaluation as well, kind of even more insidious.
- [06:47]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Oh, for sure. Yeah. No, I was actually really surprised about this. Cause I've always thought of perfectionism as sort of a personality profile. Like, I think of, you know, the Serena Williams and Steve Jobs and Hermione Grangers and Niall Cranes of the world. I thought it was something that we were. And it is. It comes from our genetics, it's heritable. It definitely comes from our families of origin. But every human reacts to the situations we're put in. So when we're put into what the researcher, Dr. Andrew Hill calls a perfectionist perfectionistic climate, of course we're gonna react, expecting others to be hard on us, being hard on ourselves. Maybe we're hard on others. So some of the factors that feed into that are simply capitalism, consumerism, advertising, and social media definitely throws a match on that pile. And so when we are in a culture that pushes us to perform and consume to ever higher Levels, of course, we're going to respond with perfectionism, with thinking we have to again, perform as superbly as possible to be sufficient as a person.
- [07:51]
Podcast Host
And you've also argued that in the context of these cultures, we might want to think about perfectionism as a social problem. What do you mean there?
- [07:57]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Yeah, I think when I say social problem, we usually think of perfectionism as a personal problem, and it's actually an interpersonal problem. Because when I'll come back to the definition, thinking we have to perform as superbly as possible to be sufficient as a person, we also think we have to perform as superbly as possible so people like us, so that we are part of a group, so that we belong. It's fundamental to all of us as human beings to need community and belonging. But perfectionism tells us a lie, and that's that we have to burn our way into that by doing things well.
- [08:35]
Podcast Host
So as you talk about it now, perfectionism seems really bad. But your book claims that there's a way that we can be conscientious about our performance without all the dark sides. What is adaptive perfectionism?
- [08:46]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Yeah, adaptive perfectionism is when we strive for excellence. We do the work for the work's sake. We keep our high standards. I think that imperfection is having a moment in the zeitgeist and in the culture, and that's awesome. That's amazing. However, I think that some of the advice that has come out of that is a little bit misguided. So I have definitely been told, ellen, you need to stop when things are good enough or you need to lower your standards. And that goes off with me and with anyone else who's familiar with perfectionism about as well as telling us to pull out our toenails. Because if we are sort of overidentified with our work or our performance, we can over identify with anything with our reflection in the mirror. The number on the scale, you know, whether we stuck to our healthy eating plan that day, our social behavior, our parenting. But if this is something that we're sort of overidentified with, telling us to settle for mediocre or subpar performance tells us that we're mediocre or subpar. So what I like to do is to try to work with clients, and certainly within myself, to not evaluate my performance so much as all or nothing, which is definitely one of the things that we do in perfectionism, but instead try to evaluate it as both. And I'll tell you a story to illustrate. So I had a client that we'll call Julie, she was a pediatrician and was a very good one by all reports. She'd been doing this for 25 years. One day she came into session and was just like lambasting herself because she had misdiagnosed a patient that week. So a little girl had come in with abdominal pain and Julie had sent the family home saying it was constipation. Turned out to be appendicitis. The little girl ended up going to the emergency room. She was fine, but Julie came into session and was saying things like, I am a bad doctor. Maybe I should retire now and get out before I hurt someone. She was really, really hard on herself. And what she was doing is. When we evaluate ourselves as all or nothing, one mistake shunts us from all I'm a good doctor to nothing I'm a bad doctor. And so what we tried to do was rather than have her set the bar for adequate at flawless, no mistakes, no misdiagnoses ever. And if you ever stumble or struggle or make a mistake that shunts us into nothing. To think about it as I'm a good doctor who sometimes makes a misdiagnosis. And we can do this in any area of life. I'm a good student who sometimes fails a test. I am a diligent person who sometimes throws in the towel. I'm a healthy person who sometimes eats a jar of marshmallow fluff. We can do this and retain our sense of ourselves as good people and create some much needed wiggle room for the inevitable mistakes and doers of life. Because we are human.
- [11:46]
Podcast Producer
If you listen to the first episode in this how to series, you know this season is all about finding practical tips for handling life's problems. So when we get back from the break, we'll hear Ellen's first hack for taming our perfectionist tendencies. The Happiness Lab will be right back. Dr. Ellen Hendrickson supports a whole host of struggling perfectionists who visit her clinic. But she's also working to heal herself. As a recovering perfectionist, Ellen has found that the first step to fighting self criticism is to examine her harsh inner monologue.
- [12:19]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
We focus on flaws and details so we are the ones to see the crumbs on the otherwise clean counter that nobody else sees. We scan the audience and we find the one frowning face in the sea of smiles. Then we self criticize. You know, if we look for it, we'll find it. So if we look for the mistake or we look for the flaw and we take that really personally because of over evaluation, then the self criticism manifests as harsh and personal. So it could be overt name calling, like, oh, I'm such an idiot. Oh, how could I be so stupid? It could be rhetorical questions, why can't I do this? Oh my gosh, why did I say it that way? Or it could not even really be conscious words at all. It could just be sort of this underlying rumbling of dissatisfaction or never feeling right about our lives. Harsh and personal.
- [13:11]
Podcast Host
So why are we so self critical? It seems like we're not like terribly masochistic. It seems like we have this theory that it seems to work.
- [13:18]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Yeah, absolutely. So we can be self critical for lots and lots of reasons. It all boils down to we think it works. We think that if we criticize ourselves harshly that we might never make that mistake again. Or we might criticize ourselves before others can remember. Perfectionism is interpersonal. So ironically, we might criticize ourselves to be beyond reproach. And in the book, there's a runner in China who goes by the name of Uncle Chen, and he went viral a few years ago for running a series of marathons while chain smoking. And he says that having something in his mouth helps him breathe and that it gives him energy. So that might be true. He does pretty well too. Like he might run sub 3:30 marathons because he's chain smoking. But I would hazard to guess that the cigarettes are stealing the credit for his good performance, his hard work, his training. And I think the same thing happens with self criticism, that it steals the credit for everything else we do so well. Setting those high standards, caring deeply about people, being diligent, and that it brings up a lot of emotion when we think about letting it go or letting it be because we worry what will happen without it. It's taken that credit.
- [14:41]
Podcast Host
But what does the data really show? Do we need that self criticism to do well?
- [14:45]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Well, so ironically, it shows that we do better without it. The difference between, for example, like healthy exercise and perfectionistic exercise, where we get a little obsessive, might exercise even if we're exhausted or injured. The difference between those two things is self criticism. So it really is the thing again that steals the credit and ironically lowers our performance as opposed to letting us reach our full potential.
- [15:12]
Podcast Host
So that's tip number one. We need to figure out ways to quit the self criticism. But how do we do that?
- [15:17]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
I have two tips for you. Okay, I learned to exercise self compassion, to talk to myself like a good friend, okay? Which absolutely might work for a lot of people, But I think for a perfectionistic brain, that means we think we have to come up with fully formed, effective paragraphs of like self compassionate hype and talk to ourselves like a self compassion speechwriter. And certainly that's a high bar. You know, I, I can't do that. And so for folks that resonate with perfectionism, I'd like to say that yes, self compassion can definitely be words, but it can also be much simpler words. It could be one word like easy or it's okay or kindness. But more than that, I think, because those fundamentally talking to ourselves is thoughts. Right. And we can't control our thoughts. So for example, like don't think about a cheeseburger floating above my head. You know, we can't control our thoughts, but what we can control is our actions. So even if we're talking to ourselves in a self critical way, we can treat ourselves in a self compassionate way. That might mean giving ourselves time to drink our coffee in the morning. It could be taking a few extra minutes to stand under the warm spray of the shower on a cold morning. It could be going to the gym because we know from experience that that makes us feel better. Or, and I think this is really important, it might mean skipping the gym because that's not what we need right now. And that would make us either more exhausted or crunch our schedule even more. For folks with some perfectionism, I think the biggest self compassionate act can be giving ourselves permission not to do all that we expect of ourselves. And there we don't have to change anything. Right.
- [17:09]
Podcast Host
It's beautiful. Yeah. We could just kind of take some stuff off our mental plate, not our actual legitimate plate.
- [17:15]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Right.
- [17:15]
Podcast Host
You also recommended other strategies that can kind of help us move these kind of nasty thoughts around. And one of the ones you suggest in the book that I love is this idea of cognitive diffusion. What is that? And what are some strategies we can use to.
- [17:27]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Yeah, no, I love cognitive defusion. So this comes from an orientation of therapy called acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT. And this was developed by Steve Hayes, Dr. Steve Hayes, back in the 80s and colleagues. And in a nutshell, traditional cognitive behavioral therapy tells us to change our thoughts and our actions in order to affect how we feel. ACT tells us to change our relationship to our thoughts and emotions. That allows us to move forward into values based action. Okay, so an example of cognitive defusions is simply putting some space between us and our thought and realizing, oh, this is a thought. This is something that is coming from, you know, my, my own mind. It is not truth, it is not what's going to happen. And so, you know, as Conscientious people, we take things quite seriously, and that includes our own thoughts and emotions. So, you know, if we think like, oh, my gosh, that was so stupid, we often take that thought really seriously. And so cognitive defusion defuses that power, and it gives us some space and some perspective to look at our thoughts with some distance. Okay. And to do that, we can play with the thoughts. So often our self critical thoughts kind of just like come at us and, you know, smack us out of nowhere. And that puts us in a very low power position. So what we can do is without making the thoughts go away, we can change them and play with them. So for instance, I had a client whose thought was, I'm gonna let everyone down. And she decided to play with this thought by picturing it on a coffee mug. And she would metaphorically take a little sip from this mug whenever she thought that thought. She would also sing it to herself, like, while she was washing dishes or otherwise alone. We can picture our thoughts skywritten behind a plane. We can picture it as the Star wars font, you know, like doing the crawl. Yes, exactly, exactly. And so our thoughts could be words. So we can, you know, we could picture it embroidered on a pillow, et cetera. But our thoughts also might be like a movie in our mind or an image. It could be an image of our boss barging into our office and firing us. And what we can do there is we can also play with that thought. We could put a clown nose on our boss. We could add a 70s soundtrack. We could have balloons come down from the ceiling. The thought itself doesn't go away. It's still there. But we are now exerting some power over it to emphasize that this is a thought, it's not actually what's happening to us right now.
- [20:11]
Podcast Host
I love this strategy so much because sometimes in these CBT circles where it's like, well, just control your thoughts. I'm like, my thoughts are really strong. I don't know about other people, but mine. So the idea of, like, you allow the thought, but you just make it a little kooky, looking a little stupid. It can be a really powerful strategy for recognizing, like, oh, these things don't have as much hold over me as I thought.
- [20:31]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Right, Absolutely. Okay, here, I'll tell you another story. So when I was promoting my first book, I was lucky enough to be on another, you know, national podcast. Took the train down to New York, recorded in a studio, and made a reasonable number of mistakes, like, said a few things. I was like, ah, that didn't Come off the way I wanted it to. But my brain, because it's my brain, afterwards, you know, started going like my, you know, our hearts are designed to beat, our sweat glands are designed to perspire. A self critical brain is gonna make self critical thoughts. And so it just started up and it said, ah, why did you say it that way? You missed that opportunity. This was not good. Okay? At the time I really believed it to the point where my poor editor who came with me had to steer me into the nearest bar and buy me a gin and tonic. But since then I have learned that that's just what happens after my brain does anything with a microphone. And so honestly, after I leave here recording us together, probably my brain will do the same thing. It'll say, oh, I totally forgot that point. That was so dumb. Or oh my goodness, why did I phrase it that way? This was not good. But thankfully I've learned that I can attend to my thoughts. Sort of like I would attend to the music at a coffee shop or like the muzak at a grocery store. It's still there. I can hear it in the background, but I don't have to listen to it. Like I'm not dancing along. So again, it's there, but it's not the truth, it's just what happens. It's just how my brain is wired. And of course that's what's gonna happen, but I don't have to let it yank me around.
- [22:13]
Podcast Host
Maybe safer and cheaper than the gin and tonics afterwards. Right? So that's tip number one. We need to fight our self critical voices or allow them in kookier ways. Tip number two is one that's harder, especially for me. We need to find ways to overcome over evaluation, which we talked about a little bit before, this idea that I am what I do. And this is something that you've struggled with as well. Talk about some examples of your own over evaluation.
- [22:41]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Sure, yeah. I mean I wrote a whole book about my, my own social anxiety and so that is overvaluating my social performance that if I didn't do things correctly or if I said something wrong, I would take that personally. So the heart of social anxiety is perfectionism.
- [22:57]
Podcast Host
Yeah. I feel like for me, my overevaluation is honestly, in whatever situation I find myself in, I overevaluate based on my podcast performance, based on what my finances look like, based on being a good wife, based on being a good teacher. It just like comes up in all these domains. And so my big question is, how do we fight this?
- [23:16]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
That is the $64,000 question. Those of us with perfectionism often orient towards rules, and uncertainty drives anxiety. Rules reduce uncertainty, therefore rules reduce anxiety. And with over evaluation, if we are doing things correctly, therefore we are correct. So those of us with some perfectionism orient towards rules. We kind of get the lay of the land and try to figure out what are the rules so I can follow them. Or if there are no rules, we make up our own rules and then we follow those. So, you know, if you've ever kind of created an exercise program for yourself, or you've had to tackle a big project and you've written out some kind of schedule and that's not bad, please keep doing that. That absolutely is very useful. But I think the problem arises when we stick to those rules very rigidly or when we follow rules sort of mindlessly, that we are following sort of someone else's generic idea of the right.
- [24:15]
Podcast Host
Thing or some other thing that we've invented that may or may not be the right thing. I feel like I do this all the time, right? I was just. I just get invited to a friend's dinner party and you know, I'm thinking like, I should bring something. But in my head it turns not just into, I should bring a bottle of wine. It's like, well, I should make a pie and I should make a pie with fresh blueberries and oh my gosh, I can't just like get a store bought pie crust, but. And it's like, wait, where did this rule. There's no like dinner party rule that says I have to put all this work in to do it in this incredibly onerous way. But somehow my brain latches onto this. That like my status as a friend and a dinner party guest kind of won't be evaluated positively unless I like go really out of my way to do this incredibly over the top dessert.
- [24:55]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
For sure. Yeah. No, as you were talking, I was nodding and nodding and nodding. And I think that's because we set personally demanding rules and standards for ourselves, because it's a way to measure ourselves. So if we are doing hard things correctly, especially like that's a referendum on us, that means that we, you know, are good enough essentially. So what we can do there is try to turn from simply following the rules to following our values. And I think values is another one of those words that sort of means everything and nothing at the same time these days. So I'll just define that. So a value is anything that we find important, meaningful, purposeful. It can really be anything. It can be A concept like equality or hard work. It can be things like books or the theater. It can be activities like running, being outdoors, relationships like connecting with your kids, being a loving partner, practices like your faith. So literally anything can be a value, okay? And there are four qualities that are particularly important. This is the work of Dr. Michael Tuhigg and Dr. Clarissa Ong. And so they say that values are continuous, so you're never done living a value. So they're different than goals, because a goal can be checked off on a list. So, for instance, like, coming to Boston is a goal, whereas going east is a value. You can always go more east. You can always live your values. So that's 1, 2 values are intrinsically meaningful, so you'd care about it even if nobody else knew. So, like, getting famous isn't a value. Your values are under your control, so they're not contingent upon anyone else. Like being respected or being loved, you can value being respectful. You can control that. Or being loving, but not contingent upon other people. And then finally, fourth, your values, and this is the most important, I think, are freely chosen. So values are never coercive or obligatory. So you freely choose to follow them. And you're likely willing to tolerate some discomfort in order to do so. You're willing to sacrifice your Saturday morning to go pick up trash on the beach if, like, sustainability or the environment is your value. So that's a very long way of saying we can start to turn away from, did I follow the rule to am I being the person I want to be? Am I living the life I want to live by following our values? Now, that's simple, but not easy. And we often, especially in perfectionism, start to try to follow our values as rules. So, for example, I had a client who said, through a combination of God and my mother, I was taught to be generous. But for her, it was functioning as a rule. She said, if a homeless person asked you for a dollar, if somebody asked you to babysit, you had to do it. Which is the exact opposite of the spirit of generosity. It was functioning as a rule as opposed to a freely chosen value.
- [28:03]
Podcast Host
One of the strategies that came up in the book is just like. Maybe even just noticing that distinction of like, this feels ruly like. And that's kind of with the dinner party situation. I kind of had that where I was like, this is starting to feel like a have to. And that's already a signal that maybe I should ease up.
- [28:17]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Yeah. So I think the first step is simply noticing that we feel coerced or obliged you mentioned I have to or I should, you know, make a pie now. I should make it from scratch. Yeah, that's absolutely, really common. And I think the quality of the experience starts to shift. If it is something that again, you can run towards what is meaningful, valued, important to you and it will start to feel freely chosen, you might still make the pie from scratch, but it's going to feel different Here. I'll tell you a story about a client I had and he was a college student and all his life had been told that he was smart. This label was very important to him, but it also created a lot of rules. He said, if I'm smart, then I need to study for a long time. Like I need to study for like, I don't know, like three hours before an exam. I need to basically memorize the study guide so that I don't ask any questions that sound stupid. I can't ask, you know, any questions that make me look foolish. But it was really driven by this sense of, okay, now I have to, I must, I should. And it was quite distressing to him. Like these are overwhelming rules to try to fulfill. So what I found interesting was that as he moved towards values and for his math class decided to try to run towards the value of learning, like he wanted to learn the material and there on the surface, he didn't actually do anything different. He still studied for a long time. He still studied for about three hours. But it was because he wanted to understand, he wanted to master this material. And he was really driven by I want or like I freely choose this as opposed to I have to or else I'm going to lose the label of smart. So again, you might still make the pie, but the quality of that experience is going to shift. You can tell when you're running towards something that you find purposeful and meaningful.
- [30:24]
Podcast Producer
So far, Ellen set out some pretty useful tips, ones that I certainly plan to use to fight my own self criticism. But how can we tackle what I've always thought is the worst symptom of perfectionism? That it drains the fun out of even the most enjoyable activities. How can I stop the good stuff in life from feeling like a chore? Well, Ellen will have the answers after the break. What are some activities you find fun? Going on a picnic maybe, or having friends over for a game night, or working on your favorite craft project? On the face of it, these should be enjoyable activities, ones that give us a sense of joy. But if you have a perfectionist street like me, you may turn these events into tests of your competence? Did I choose the best color for that craft project? Did I pick the right spot for that picnic? Will my game night guests like the snacks I got? Will they expect pretzels and chips? What about the dips? Perfectionists always want to go above and beyond, which means a simple picnic is never just a simple picnic. It has to be perfect and win admiration, a standard that impossibly high. It doesn't just take work. It breeds constant worry. It turns what's supposed to be fun into a chore. And this, Dr. Ellen Hendrickson says, is the problem of demand sensitivity.
- [31:42]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
So demand sensitivity is exactly that. It's a heightened sensitivity to, like, perceived requests or demands. We orient to the shoulds of life and what we should be doing. So what happens, though, is that we turn want into should. Okay, so for me, I keep a running list of books I'd like to read or movies I'd like to see on my laptop. Okay? But then it's part of a list. And my life is already full of lists and full of things I have to do. And so when it comes time to, you know, sit down and turn on Netflix or the book comes in from the library or arrives at the bookstore, now it's a task. Now it's something I have to do because it's part of a list. And then I lose interest completely.
- [32:32]
Podcast Host
And that gets to something I've experienced a lot, the kind of pernicious outcome of demand sensitivity, which is what's called demand resistance.
- [32:40]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Yes. So demand resistance is when we feel so overloaded with tasks or shoulds that we start to bulk. We procrastinate, we kick the can down the road, even if it's something we initially wanted to do. Because if we only make room for the shoulds of life, all work and no play makes anyone a resentful human. So we might do the thing, but we do it with a little bit of resentment or a little bit of passive aggression. And that can affect our relationships, you know, especially if they're important relationships to us, like with our partner or, you know, our workplace. And it can just make us feel like life is this never ending, people pleasing grind.
- [33:24]
Podcast Host
Okay, so this is something I go through a lot, especially the demand resistance part. How do we fix this?
- [33:30]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
So I do have to say, like, this is hard. Even Dr. Mallinger says this is one of the most difficult things to change when we're trying to pull back on our perfectionism. So, okay, let me give you an example from my life. So I am really bad at keeping up with My email. Because I see my email as a to do list that other people make.
- [33:52]
Podcast Host
I'm nodding. So the biggest nod ever. Yes.
- [33:55]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
I think there's a lot of us in this same boat. So what I've learned to do is to try to turn towards my values. And I've found that if I think about replying to the individual, the person on the other end of that email address, because I value my relationship with them, then this all frees up. It's like. It's like combing the dried paint out of a paintbrush. Just everything just kind of gets freed up and works more easily. And then I don't feel that resistance in getting back to them. You know, it's not some magical 180, but it absolutely allows me to let go of that demand resistance and make things work and get back to them.
- [34:42]
Podcast Host
I think it also helps just to remember there's a reason you're doing this. Right. It's not like, for example, in the email case, it's not just this endless list of demands that are coming to you, but there's a value behind it. Right. You know, there was some project that you were working on that you really cared about, or there's a friendship that you really want to attend to or a work colleague that you really care about. Even just kind of reconnecting with your values, I feel like is powerful for reducing some of this resistance.
- [35:06]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we can apply all that to because, okay, email is something we have to do. Like, we do have to do that. We gotta figure out, like, okay, how am I gonna make this work? But then when it comes to the optional things, I think we can dare to be unproductive. For many of us, there is a rule in our head of I should always be doing something productive or I should always be improving myself. And so I think we can dare to be unproductive and turn towards what looks interesting. What does your mind keep, like, wandering towards? And so I think if we tap into what makes my spidey senses tingle, what do I really want to do? That might be hard to answer at first if our want muscles are very underdeveloped. But I think with some practice, we can tune in to what we enjoy, what we would like to do, what looks fun or cool or interesting, and allow ourselves to do that rather than slog through another should.
- [36:09]
Podcast Host
I think this is especially important at the New year where we're all finding ourselves right now. This mantra of daring to be unproductive, I feel like, is one that a lot that I definitely am going to resonate with. So now we get to tip number four, Another one that I have a tough time with. But you've argued that we need to redefine failure, explain what you mean.
- [36:29]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Sure. So if we define failure, failure as not meeting expectations, if we set that bar for adequate at flawless, it means we're never allowed to not meet our very high, personally demanding, often unrealistic expectations and 10,000 foot view. If we set these, again, very high standards and we inevitably don't meet them over years and decades, we rack up a lot of failures and then we start to feel like failures. So a rule that I set for myself that I didn't even realize until actually. So I was in grad school and I was analyzing some data and was just flailing and struggling by myself for honestly hours. And when I went to go show my professor my numbers, they were all wrong. And she looked at me and said, ellen, you don't have to do this yourself. And she had articulated a rule that I didn't even realize I had. Through that lens, I could look back and realize that, you know, my overcompensation is hyper independence. And so, you know, from navigating friend drama or like trying to move furniture, like, I would do it all myself. So I had set this, you know, high, personally demanding standard for myself. And so if I were to ask for help or if I were to take advice or be vulnerable, that would mean that I was failing. It would mean that I wasn't reaching that expectation, but it wasn't working for me. So what we can do is we can look at, is this working, is this feasible, is this workable? And when it's not, rather than doubling down and saying, okay, well now I really have to do this all myself, we can try to do something different. And in this example, ask for help, take advice, be vulnerable. And what that does particularly is it sends two messages. It sends I trust you. When we show other people some of the mess, instead of only the correct highlighted answer at the end, it signals, I trust you to see some of the mess and not to judge me. It also sends the message of we are the same. And rather than putting ourselves in an invulnerable position of kind of having this like coach mentee relationship or teacher student relationship, it puts us on an equal level with the people we love and who care about us. And so by asking for help or showing some of the mess or being a little bit vulnerable, we signal, I trust you, we're the same. And that is what Brings us closer instead of what perfectionism tells us is that we have to earn our way into being liked by doing things well. So ironically, showing we are capable of doing things poorly or that we need their help, they have something to offer us that draws us closer as opposed to just performing as superbly as possible.
- [39:35]
Podcast Host
You talked in the beginning about how this was the book that you needed. Has writing the book and engaging with these strategies made you less perfectionist, a little bit happier?
- [39:45]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Yeah, absolutely. Well, okay, so I would say that I am still perfectionistic. Like I still set high standards, I still work hard, I still care deeply about the people I work with and for. But I think I'm also more flexible. I think about what would work here as opposed to did I follow the rules? I think about am I living the life I want to live? Am I being the person I want to be, rather than simply doing the generic right thing. And ironically, showing some of that mess and showing that I struggle. So telling people about my successes and also my failures brings us closer together. So ironically, I feel more supported and connected than when I was really in the grips of unhealthy perfectionism. Can I end with one closing, please? Yeah. Okay. A message I want to send to everybody who sort of identifies, who's been nodding their heads as they've been listening. And so I got an email from a potential client, somebody who wanted to come in and do some work on perfectionism. And so I said, cool, come on in. And we set up a first appointment. And then the day of the appointment, she emailed me and canceled. And she said, I've taken a look at my schedule and my bandwidth and I want to wait until I have time to work really hard on this. I want to make sure that, that I can give this the effort it deserves. And what I said to her and what I'll say to listeners out there is that you don't have to do that much differently, that even being 5% less hard on yourself, you know, 10% kinder to yourself, or simply trying to change your relationship to your self criticism, or that over evaluation, that's all you need to do, we can still walk around with a lot of rules in our head or with the urge to be productive every minute of the day, but we don't have to listen to them. And instead if we run towards those values, towards what's purposeful or interesting or meaningful, we might not even do anything different. It's the mindset beneath that that will have changed. And that doesn't take a lot of Effort or hard work, contrary to what perfectionism tells us.
- [42:01]
Podcast Producer
I don't know about you, but I love that message. As a perfectionist, it's important to remember that the good stuff in life doesn't have to be a hard slog. And Ellen thinks the first step can be easy. We can just start right this moment by questioning the demanding voice in our heads. If it says we're not enough, we can fight back and say I am. During our interview, Ellen admitted that she still struggles with perfectionism from time to time and that her residual self criticism was bound to torment her after our interview, making her feel like she'd messed up or said the wrong things during our chat. So I decided to call her up and check in.
- [42:34]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Hello?
- [42:35]
Podcast Host
Hey Ellen, it's Lori calling.
- [42:38]
F
Hi, thanks for following up.
- [42:39]
Podcast Host
Yeah, you know, yesterday in our interview you mentioned this idea that sometimes you beat yourself up after interviews or that you might need an emergency gin and tonic. So I just wanted to check, how is perfectionism going today?
- [42:52]
F
Yeah. So the short answer is I did.
- [42:55]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Not beat myself up.
- [42:56]
Podcast Host
Yay.
- [42:57]
F
Yay. So yeah, I'm delighted to report that.
- [43:00]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
The longer answer is that, you know.
- [43:02]
F
I did have some thoughts. So I did think like, oh, I revealed too much. I thought, oh, that could have been more polished.
- [43:10]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
But I am happy to report that.
- [43:13]
F
The thoughts didn't hurt in the way.
- [43:14]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
That the phrase beating myself up. So yeah, and I think this has.
- [43:20]
F
Happened often enough to know that it's just part of the script, it's just the order in which things happen. So for me it's like do interview, think it sucks, realize it actually didn't, or if it does learn from it, do it again. It's kind of like when you go to a restaurant, there's a script, there's just what happens. You look at the menu, you order, you get your food, you eat, you pay, you leave. So for me, that's the script for an interview. But for other people, those self critical thoughts might automatically come after an exam like, oh, I probably failed. Or after a party where we kind of review the lowlights and kick ourselves, or maybe after a work presentation, but.
- [44:03]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
It'S just the script playing out.
- [44:06]
F
It doesn't mean that next time we have to work harder or that we have to reassure ourselves that we're actually talented or that people like us, we can just let it play out. Like, oh, there's that thing my brain does.
- [44:19]
Podcast Host
Oh, I love this. This makes me feel so much more encouraged to start using some of your strategies myself so we can flip the.
- [44:26]
Podcast Producer
Script on the script, as it were.
- [44:28]
F
Oh, I'm so glad.
- [44:30]
Podcast Host
Thanks so much, Ellen. It was really great to connect again.
- [44:32]
F
Great to connect with you. Thanks for following up.
- [44:34]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Thanks.
- [44:34]
Podcast Host
Thanks. Bye.
- [44:35]
Dr. Ellen Hendrickson
Bye.
- [44:36]
Podcast Producer
So there you have it. Ellen's effective tips on how to feel like you're enough to recap, they include include tip 1. Talk back to your self criticism. Remember that you can control that mean voice in your head. Tip number two, you've got to overcome over evaluation. Remember that your worth is just not contingent on your performance. Stop turning fun into a chore. Combat your demand sensitivity and get back to the fun parts of life. Redefine what you mean by failure. You can make the switch from an exam mindset to an experiment mindset. And tip number five, when it comes to fighting perfectionism, baby steps are the way to go. In the next episode of our how to season, we'll be switching gears. We'll explore some ways to put our goals and problems in perspective. And we'll learn the benefits of realizing that you're not the center of the world. That's right. We're going to learn how to get over ourselves. All that next time on the Happiness lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.
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